Method and system for evaluating, rewarding and facilitating philanthropic works

ABSTRACT

Method and system for evaluating, rewarding and facilitating philanthropic works are described. Ethical accounts and points are introduced and computer-implemented fair evaluations of, and hence interchangeable rewards for, various philanthropic works that reflect different time values are provided. Automatic calculation and distribution of rewarding points from a beneficiary to not only its benefactor but also the benefactor&#39; precious benefactors are implemented to encourage sustainable philanthropy over time. Rewarding amounts and paths are tracked explicitly for impact measurement of philanthropic works, which may be used to facilitate more effective allocation of philanthropic resources. Volunteer requesting, applying and rewarding at the level of minimum durations are enabled, and automated coordination and documentation are offered to further facilitate philanthropic endeavors.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Philanthropic work such as volunteering, pro bono service, donation andcharitable grant has a huge impact on human wellbeing, health and lifesatisfaction. There are more than 1.8 million active non-profitorganizations in the United States and many of them rely onphilanthropic work in their daily operations to fulfill mission andachieve goals. However, reports indicate that, while nonprofits havebenefitted from record highs in philanthropic work in recent years,fewer people on average are volunteering and contributing money in thedeveloped world than two decades ago, and engaging more people back is achallenging work.

Many types of incentive programs have been offered to encourage morepeople to volunteer or donate, such as discounts and offers frombusinesses, shops and merchants, or matched donations by sponsors. Forexample, A UK volunteering charity, VInspired, has launched a rewardscard which offers volunteers benefits and discounts when travellingacross Europe. U.S. Pat. No. 10,679,237 describes a system that partnerswith merchants like Macy's and other social funds to reward rebate todonors or raise fund for cause (also called “beneficiary” of the raisedfund). Generally, these systems bundle rewards to volunteering orcampaign causes with certain consumption, or offer rebates to donationsmatched by sponsors, which puts a burden on the vendor or sponsor, andmay bear risks of being discontinued. There's a need for incentivemechanism that is based on actual philanthropic works instead ofconsumptions or sponsorships. In other areas, multilevel commissionshave been applied to incentivize businesses to grow. For example, U.S.Pat. No. 8,606,675 implements a power commission structure in which abusiness owner will get increased payout (i.e., a 2%, 3%, 5%, 6%commission) as it has sponsored increased number (i.e., 4, 16, 64, 256)of other businesses underneath. While it's tempting to reward aphilanthropic benefactor according to the number of its direct andindirect beneficiaries, a better direction would be to reward abenefactor according to the value brought to its direct and indirectbeneficiaries by its work. It's an object of this invention to providesystem and method that will encourage people to continuously involve inphilanthropic works that bring about more value and be moreself-sustained.

Research finds that although most volunteers and donors may not bedriven by material compensation, they do expect certain return, such asacknowledgment, recognition, appreciation and impact of theirphilanthropic work. If volunteers and donors do not feel theirexpertise, time and money be made best use of, or if their philanthropicwork does not make a difference, they may not stay. It seems natural andobvious to recognize and reward volunteers based on their volunteertime. Although many, including websites and software applications suchas VolunteerHub®, record volunteer time, they either do not provide timebased rewards, or the rewards by different systems can be inconsistentand disparate. None of them determines interchangeable reward valuesbased on volunteer time for different works. As volunteers want to bewell-regarded and fairly rewarded for their contribution, an effectivesystem to incentivize comprehensive philanthropic contributions needs toenable consistent rewards by determining interchangeable values forvarious philanthropic works. For example, it's obvious that the rewardsfor an hour of voluntary teaching of high school mathematics shallprobably be higher than an hour of voluntary teaching of primary schoolmathematics. Saxena (U.S. Patent Publication No. 20150199640) mentionedabout rewarding volunteers in an online social learning platform by“incrementing the user's account of volunteer time”, and “the amount oftime depends at least partially on an experience level of the user”,without many specifics. But what about an hour of pro bono legal serviceversus an hour of volunteer emergency veterinary care? Which one shouldbe evaluated higher and how much higher? Besides volunteer time andexperience level, what other factors need to be considered? No existentsystem and method has been offered to tackle this complexity. It's alsoan object of this invention to provide method and system enabling morefair, consistent evaluation of, and hence interchangeable rewards for,various philanthropic works based on specific attributes of the work,which may further incorporate other potential determinants andcomplexities.

Besides deserved recognition and fair evaluation, volunteers and donorswant to know how their philanthropic works make a difference, and wanttheir philanthropic support be allocated to those that get betterresults and make systemic social changes. Many existent systems such asCharityNavigater®, GuideStar® and Better Business Bureau®, ratenonprofits based on financial metrics such as program and administrativeexpenses and amount of raised funds according to tax return reports,which mainly measure nonprofits' operational and administrative inputsrather than outputs or impact that those inputs have generated on thebeneficiaries or the society. Some systems such as VolunteerHub® providevolunteer satisfaction, attendance or number of participating volunteersas metrics for volunteer impact, which measure impact on volunteersrather than impact on the society brought by volunteer's work. Othermetrics such as number of actions taken or stakeholders reached, numberof people with an improved experience as a result of work, number ofvirtual interactions, etc., have been mentioned, and survey, viamultiple media or channels, is suggested as the method for collectingdata for these metrics.

However, among limitations such as being verbose, cumbersome andexpensive, these metrics based on self-report surveys could lack unifiedstandards, and have a tendency to simply reward quantity or number ofclicks. Without an easy-to-use and universal measurement of impact ofphilanthropic work, which has long been a challenge especially due toits complex social characteristics, valid comparison and effectivephilanthropic resource allocation are impossible. A further object ofthis invention is to provide method and system that offer easy-to-useand universally comparable measurements of outputs and impact, includinglong-term impact, brought by works of non-profit organizations,volunteers and other philanthropists, which may be used to facilitatemore effective and strategic philanthropic resource allocation.

In addition to incentive systems, efforts have been made to facilitatevolunteering by improving communication and coordination amongvolunteers and nonprofits. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,548,839describes a system for facilitating healthcare volunteering by matchingvolunteers based on location and distance between volunteers and publichealth events. Some volunteer matching systems, such as VolunteerMatch®,offer matchmaking of volunteers and opportunities. However, thesesystems typically ask volunteers about their interests and estimatedavailability when they registered as a user.

This means that the available time of volunteers used for matchmakingare generally rough ranges. Since those registered volunteers' personaltime schedule may change subsequently, organizations may need toconstantly communicate and check with those matched volunteers in termsof availability, or may find registered volunteers unavailable whenneeded. A further object of this invention is to facilitatephilanthropic works by enabling volunteers to flexibly utilize theiravailable tiny time as much as possible, and offering simplifiedcoordination, documentation and rewarding correspondingly.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a diagram of the client-server architecture of a systemaccording to an exemplary embodiment.

FIGS. 2A and 2B depict a graph of benefactor-beneficiary relationshipsamong a plural of users, and an illustration of receivers of differentdegree levels and corresponding rewarding amounts distributed to them,according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a diagram that illustrates the functional components of asystem according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart that illustrates a method for determining areference amount of rewarding points to a benefactor of a philanthropicwork and enabling a beneficiary user to verify and reward the benefactorand potential indirect benefactors, according to an exemplaryembodiment.

FIG. 5 depicts an interface that shows a philanthropic work according toan exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 6 depicts an interface that enables a beneficiary user to verifycontribution and reward points to a plural of benefactors and potentialindirect benefactors according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 7 depicts an interface displaying a profile of a user whichcomprises the user's rewarding accounts summary information,philanthropic work related activities and a donation section, accordingto an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 8 depicts an interface displaying a following dashboard of a userwhich comprises rewarding accounts summary information and philanthropicwork related activities of the user's benefactors, beneficiaries, andother users followed by the user, according to an exemplary embodiment.according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIGS. 9A and 9B depict interfaces displaying basic information andtransaction details of a user's rewarding accounts according toexemplary embodiments.

FIG. 10 depicts an interface that enables a user to search other usersand sort them based on summary information of their rewarding accounts,according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 11 depicts an interface displaying a management dashboard withrelevant options automatically determined by the system that enables aphilanthropic work requester to coordinate with applicants to requestslots, according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 12 depicts an interface that enables a philanthropic work requesterto communicate with relevant applicants automatically determined by thesystem according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 13 depicts an interface that enables a user to search and(un/)apply to philanthropic work request slots according to an exemplaryembodiment.

FIG. 14 depicts an interface that enables a user to search, view and addto calendar its volunteer applications to philanthropic work requestslots according to an exemplary embodiment.

FIG. 15 depicts an interface displaying an automatically generatedphilanthropic work submission based on a finished philanthropic workrequest, according to an exemplary embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

It should be understood that this disclosure is exemplary illustrationof the invention, and is not intended to limit the embodiments or toexclude other embodiments with modifications and variations but notdeparting the scope or spirit of the invention. It should also to beunderstood that the terminology used here is not intended to belimiting. As used in the specification and the claims, the singularforms “a”, “an” and “the” include plural referents as well, unless thecontext clearly indicates otherwise.

Method and system according to exemplary embodiments may provide users aplatform and/or applications to record, evaluate, reward and facilitatephilanthropic works. The users mentioned in the system and method can bea single person, an organization such as a business, a non-profit orother type of organization that registers to use a platform and/orapplications of the system. In the system and method, a benefactor of aphilanthropic work is a person or organization that helps others bygiving money or charitable grant, volunteering time or expertise, ororganizing those philanthropic works for them. A beneficiary of aphilanthropic work is a person or organization that has benefited fromvolunteering, donation, grant or others' help and publicly expressesthanks and rewards points to them. The system and method dynamicallymaintains a benefactor-beneficiary relation data that reflects thehistorical benefactor and beneficiary relationships among users.

In one embodiment, a user may submit electronically a finishedphilanthropic work to the system using a user device. The submission maycomprise (1) descriptive information of the philanthropic work such aswork title, type, role, amount of money or time contributed by thebenefactor(/s), location, time, description, and philanthropic cause(/s)related to the work, etc., (2) evidence of the philanthropic work suchas document, photo, video, audio, etc., and (3) publish preference ofthe philanthropic work indicating whether the user intends to post thework publicly or privately. In some situations, the philanthropic workmay be submitted by the benefactor. In other situations, thephilanthropic work may be submitted by others. A philanthropic work maybe displayed by the system publicly or privately based on the publishpreference in the submission and the type of the work. For example, ananonymous money donation may be displayed only to the donor itself as aprivate record. A philanthropic work done with contribution fromvolunteers may be displayed publicly so that potential beneficiary userscan view and reward the participating volunteers. In one embodiment,money donation made by a user to another user via the system cangenerate public or private philanthropic work submission automaticallyby the system, depending on the anonymity of the donation. In variousembodiments, a published philanthropic work can be viewed, searched,commented, and shared with others by any users. Beneficiary users canacknowledge (i.e., reward) the benefactors of a published philanthropicwork.

Based on a published philanthropic work, a beneficiary user may rewardpoints to its benefactors by paying out points from its rewardingaccounts. In various embodiments, a user has rewarding accounts, calledethical accounts, which contain rewarding points, called ethical points,measured in (1) monetary unit used for monetary contribution such asmoney or property donation and grant, and in (2) time unit used for timecontribution such as volunteering and pro bono service. The system andmethod may initialize the rewarding accounts of a user with certainamount of rewarding points or credits based on the user's profile. Inone embodiment, the system may assign a credit limit to a rewardingaccount of a user, which allows the user to have a limited negativebalance in the rewarding account. In another embodiment, the system maydirectly add an amount of points to a rewarding account of a user. Invarious embodiments, a benefactor may be rewarded points based on themonetary value it contributed in a philanthropic work, e.g., the amountof donated money, or based on the time it contributed in a philanthropicwork, e.g., the amount of time spent in a pro bono service. The systemand method provide a reference amount of rewarding point to be receivedby a benefactor based on the benefactor's contribution and attributes ofthe philanthropic work. The reference amount of rewarding point inmonetary unit is set to be equal to the amount of monetary contribution.The reference amount of rewarding point in time unit may not be equal tothe raw amount of time contribution, and may be adjusted by the methodand system to reflect different time values associated with differentphilanthropic works, so that the rewarding points are interchangeable,and the rewards are consistent and fair enough to be incentive. Forexample, an hour of pro bono legal service may be associated with morethan one rewarding points in time unit. In various embodiments, theadjustment is implemented by an evaluation module of the system andmethod that determines an adjusted reference amount of rewarding pointsin time unit corresponding to a benefactor's philanthropic work based onthe work's descriptive information. In some embodiments, the evaluationmodule may use private or public data, or the sampling, integration,indexing and other processed results of them, and an evaluation functionto determine time values for specific philanthropic works. For example,the adjusted time value of a philanthropic work can be related tospecific work role, location, time or cause to reflect a faircompensation for the time of work contributed by the benefactor, and canbe in the form of an absolute amount or in the form of an indexedamount. In some embodiments, rules, mathematical models or machinelearning algorithms may be used in the evaluation function to relatetime values with descriptive information of philanthropic works.

In various embodiments, a beneficiary user is allowed to override thereference amount of rewarding points determined by the evaluation moduleof the system and input another amount to be paid out to the benefactor,to further incorporate unobservable determinants such as subjectiveappraisal and other potential complexities into the evaluation ofphilanthropic works. In one embodiment, the reference amount ofrewarding points to a benefactor determined by the system and method isdisplayed to a beneficiary user as a default amount of rewarding pointsto be paid out to the benefactor. And the raw amount of contribution bythe benefactor described in the published philanthropic work may also bedisplayed to the beneficiary user. The beneficiary user is allowed tochange the amount of rewarding points to be paid out by overriding thedefault referenced amount. The beneficiary user may also be allowed toverify the displayed raw amount of benefactor contribution and change itaccording to how much it has actually benefited from the benefactor'sphilanthropic work.

In some embodiments, inputs by beneficiary users who override thereference amounts of rewarding points determined by the method andsystem and the raw contribution amounts described in publishedphilanthropic works may be further used for the updating of theevaluation function of the evaluation module, either at regularintervals, or in a real-time manner.

When a beneficiary user pays out an amount of rewarding points to abenefactor for a published philanthropic work, either by accepting thereference rewarding amount or by inputting another amount, the systemand method may automatically calculate and distribute a portion of thepaid out amount to all the indirect benefactors who were benefactors ofthe target benefactor, by retrieving on the benefactor-beneficiaryrelation, and determining a corresponding rewarding amount to bereceived by each of them. In some embodiments, a portion of therewarding points are distributed among indirect receivers of differentdegree levels according to the degree level the receivers are linkedwith the beneficiary user, and are then distributed among each receiversat each same degree level equally. For example, the system and methodmay implement an arithmetic progression distributing rule in which thedifference of the progression is a negative value, or a geometricprogression distributing rule in which the common ratio of theprogression is a value less than 1, to calculate the total amount A_(n)received by all the n^(th) degree indirect benefactor receivers, andthen distributes A_(n) equally among those n^(th) degree receivers. Inother embodiments, the distributing rules may be arbitrary, or thebeneficiary users is allowed to configure the distribution parameters,or some of the rewarding points may be distributed to the platform.

In various embodiments, a user is enabled to view and search on theinformation of its rewarding account such as the account name, balance,unit, credit limit, and transaction history which include details of allthe transactions of the rewarding account. In one embodiment, atransaction detail includes information of transaction time, amount ofpoints transferred, related philanthropic work, paying user, targetreceiver, and indirect receivers, if there're any, through which anindirect reward was distributed. In various embodiments, a user'srewarding accounts' balances and other summary information based onrewarding accounts of its direct and indirect benefactors andbeneficiaries may be displayed on the user's profile or on lists ofusers, which may be viewed or sorted by other users who are potentialdonors or volunteers. In one embodiment, a user can opt to receive moneydonations from other users via the system after verifying its securitycompliant account for receiving donation money, and other users can viewa potential donee's profile which includes basic information,philanthropic work related activities, rewarding accounts' balances andother summary information. Rewarding accounts' balances and summaryinformation of users may be sorted and displayed side by side when apotential donor or volunteer searches for and compares potential doneesor volunteer requester. In some embodiments, the summary information ofrewarding accounts of a user may include a sum of rewarding points auser has transferred to all of its direct benefactors, and sums ofrewarding points distributed to a user by all of its direct and indirectbeneficiaries, reflecting correspondingly that how much a user hasacknowledged all its helpers for their good works, how much a user hasinvolved in philanthropic works itself to bring about value to others,and how much a user has helped other people who further involve inphilanthropic works to bring about more value and hence been indirectlyrewarded with distributed points through them. These summary informationprovide simple and universally comparable measurements of value and(/long-term) impact brought about by a user through variousphilanthropic works, in the unit of work adjusted time for time measuredworks, or in the unit of monetary value for monetary works, so thatpotential donors, funders and volunteers may consider and compare onwhen allocating their philanthropic supports. In various embodiments,the system and method may automatically generate donation receipt andphilanthropic work submission based on money donation made by a user viathe system, and depending on whether the donation is anonymous, displayit publicly or privately, and reward the donor as well as its previousbenefactors by automatically transferring rewarding points in monetaryunit out from the donee to them, so that the donor need not manuallysubmit donation work or invite donees for rewards, and the donee neednot manually search for the donation work to reward the donor.

In various embodiments, a user is enabled to follow and un-follow otherusers and is provided a following dashboard which displays rewardingaccounts' balances and summary information of its direct and indirectbenefactors and beneficiaries, as well as updated information aboutphilanthropic works and related activities of other users it follows.The updated information about philanthropic works and related activitiesof a user may include the user finishing, publishing, rewarding,requesting, applying to requests of, and commenting on a philanthropicwork, etc. In some embodiments, a user's following dashboard may showupdated information about philanthropic works and related activities ofthe user's benefactors and beneficiaries if the user is followingnobody. In one embodiment, the summary information of rewarding accountsincluded in a user's following dashboard may include sums of rewardingpoints that the user has transferred to each of its direct benefactors,and sums of rewarding points distributed to the user by or through eachof its beneficiaries, reflecting correspondingly that how much a userhas acknowledged each of its benefactors for their good works, how mucha user has involved in philanthropic works itself to bring about valueto each of its beneficiaries, and how much a user has helped each of itsbeneficiaries who further involve in philanthropic works to bring aboutmore value and hence been indirectly rewarded with distributed pointsthrough that beneficiary.

In one embodiment, a user may submit electronically a philanthropic workrequest, such as a volunteer need to recruit volunteers, to the systemusing a user device. The submission may include the requested work'stype, description, work role, starting and ending time, the minimum timeduration an applicant needs to work for, the estimated number ofapplicants needed for the said durations, work location, relatedphilanthropic causes, skills needed, instructions, whether the requestis repeating and repeating rules, etc. The requester is allowed toreview its submission and decide whether to edit or cancel the requestbefore publishing it. Based on the submitted philanthropic work request,the system may generate request time slots automatically and enable auser to search for, apply and un-apply to before being confirmed by therequester, and be matched with specific time slots of a publishedrequest. A user is also enabled to view, search, comment, and share withothers published philanthropic work requests. On one hand, a requestercan invite potential applicants to apply for a philanthropic workrequest by sending emails to them via the system. On the other hand, apotential applicant is enabled to search for philanthropic work requestsbased on search criteria such as starting and ending time, minimumdurations, requested role, requester, request title, description,location and related philanthropic cause, etc. As the system providesevaluations reflecting fair time values associated with variousphilanthropic works as well as explicit measurements of impact, usersmay expect their volunteer time will be fairly rewarded and make anobservable difference, therefore be more incentivized to actively searchand apply to philanthropic work requests. Including minimum durationsmay also enhance the probability that a potential volunteer will find amatched volunteer request. Some alternative embodiments may furtherinclude bidding mechanism. For example, an applicant may be matched torequest with the highest rewarding bid, and a request may be matched toapplicant with lowest rewarding ask.

In various embodiments, a philanthropic work requester is enabled tomanage the request for coordination and communications such asscheduling, confirming applications, sending messages or cancelling timeslots via system provided management dashboard that is configured tosimplify the flow of work, offer efficient batch operations and avoidomissions or repetitions. In one embodiment, the management dashboardmay include dynamically generated request time slots, buttons, links,user lists and message templates depending on different stages of therequest management process and current requesting and applyingsituations. All the buttons, links and lists are shown in the dashboardonly when certain options are available, certain actions are necessary,or certain operations are executable, and are shown in one place, sothat the requester can have the picture of the whole while not gettinglost in a sea of options. The requester can take necessary actions andaccomplish batch operations efficiently by a few clicks to accept,select from, or make minor changes to those automatically determineddefault options and templates without mistakes. For example, beforeconfirmation, option of cancelling a request time slot is allowed whennobody has applied to that slot, until otherwise. At any time pointduring the confirmation stage, a requester may confirm all or only oneor some of the currently unconfirmed volunteer applicants to a requesttime slot and send confirmation to them via batch emails usingpre-configured message template, by accepting or (/un)selecting from thedynamically determined applicants list, and need not worry about missingany new applicants or confirming an applicant twice by mistake. If arequester confirmed some of the applicants for a request time slot atone time, only new applicants to the time slot since then and those whohave not been confirmed will be included in the default list ofapplicants to be confirmed next time. In the later stages, a requesteris enabled to email all currently confirmed applicants to a request timeslot to give the latest instructions or to announce cancellation of thatconfirmed slot, or to communicate with only some of them for specificmessages. A requester can also make changes to the message templateswhich are dynamically provided by the system according to the currentcommunication stage. In various embodiments, an applicant tophilanthropic work requests may simply click one button to add allactive applied time slots, which have been confirmed and not cancelledby requesters, and have not started yet, to personal calendar such asiCalendar, Outlook Calendar, or Google Calendar.

In various embodiments, a philanthropic work requester is enabled togenerate philanthropic work submission based on finished philanthropicwork request automatically, so that the work can be accuratelydocumented without the recalling of details and the manual inputting bythe requester. In one embodiment, after the ending time of aphilanthropic work request, the requester is provided with philanthropicwork submission form with pre-filled information of the work such aswork type, location, time, description text, work role, benefactors andvolunteers as well as their corresponding contribution time, etc., whichcan be verified and edited by the requester. For example, the requesteris enabled to edit the list of participated volunteers to delete thoseno-shows and add those who didn't apply but actually participated incorresponding time slots upon submitting the automatically generatedphilanthropic work. In various embodiments, if a philanthropic workrequest has multiple time slots, the requester can generate one singlephilanthropic work submission after all the time slots have finished, orgenerate multiple philanthropic work submissions based on some of thefinished time slots as needed. The system may verify if a request timeslot has finished and has not been used as a basis to generatephilanthropic work submission, before generating a philanthropic worksubmission based on it, to ensure there's no missing or duplicate recordfor finished philanthropic works.

FIG. 1 illustrates a client-server architecture of a system according toan exemplary embodiment. Networked system 100 includes a plural ofinternet users 110, 120, . . . and 130, a web server 150, anapplications server 160, a database server 170, and a database 180connected via the internet 140. Each internet user has user device thatmay have display screen, computing processor, storage, and cancommunicate with a network such as the internet 140 to access the webserver 150 which handles user's requests for web resources such as HTMLpages, images, files, etc., and the applications server 160 whichexecutes computer programs to provide applications functions. The userdevices of internet users 110, 120, . . . and 130 can be computers likedesktops and laptops, portable devices like mobile phones and tablets,or a combination of them. Database server 170 may communicate with theservers 150 and 160 and the devices of internet users to facilitateaccess to one or more databases 180, via the internet 140 or over directconnections. The internet users may be provided with downloadable appsor programs that run on the users' devices. In alternative embodiments,system architectures other than a client server architecture, such aspeer-to-peer or mixed ones, may be implemented. Some of the componentsmay be implemented in other combinations, for instance, the servers 150and 160 may be combined as one web application server. In someembodiments, the system may use a intranet or LAN instead of theinternet or WAN, or a combination of the two.

In one embodiment, the system may be implemented in a three-tierarchitecture, in which the presentation, application processing and datamanagement functions are physically separated. As shown in FIG. 3, anexemplary three-tier architecture system 300 may include a presentationtier 310, an application tier 320, and a data tier 330. The presentationtier 310 handles user interface 312 via a UI processing module 313 whichmay execute on a web server to receives input from and displayinformation to users' devices, and may provide initial input validationby scripts embedded in client side. The application tier 320 may executeon a applications server containing modularized and extendable computerprograms or applications to implement business logic and servicefunctions of the system and method, and to determine and generatecontent to be handled by the presentation tier 310. The data tier 330manages databases and provides access to data used by application tier320 and may maintain and collect data located on local or remote storagefacilities. In some alternative embodiments, the system may include morelayers as needed, and the applications and function modules may bedecomposed, recombined, extended or be duplicated.

In one embodiment, application tier 320 includes a users application321, an accounts application 322, a works application 324, a volunteersapplication 326, a donations application 328, and other applications329. Users application 321 implements the functions of user managementincluding user registration, login, subscription, profile maintaining,user search and sort, socialization, privacy setting, etc. Accountsapplication 322 implements the functions of rewarding accountsmaintenance and management comprising initializing accounts, loggingtransactions and updating balances and other information, verifying,transferring and distributing rewarding points to accounts via arewarding module 323. Works application 324 implements the functions ofphilanthropic work management comprising work submission, display,search, share, comment, reward, and determining rewarding values forphilanthropic works via an evaluation module 325. Volunteers application326 implements the functions of philanthropic work requests managementcomprising processing requests, responses, previews, cancels, shares,comments, searches, matches, communications and slot scheduling andcoordination via a scheduling module 327. Donations application 328implements functions of money donation management including giving cart,online payment processing, transaction logging, account verification,receipts generation, donation history for donor/donee, donee search,other documentation, etc. Other applications 329 implements otherfunctions and common utilities for system operation and optimization. Inalternative embodiments, some of the functions may be implemented inother applications, modules, components or combinations.

In one embodiment, as shown in FIG. 3, stored in the databases of datatier 330 are user data 331 comprising information of user profile,following relations, and user subscription, etc., rewarding accountsdata 332 comprising information of each user's rewarding accounts andtheir balances, units, transaction details and history, etc.,benefactor-beneficiary relation 333 comprising information of thebenefactor and beneficiary relationships among users, philanthropic workdata 334 comprising information of philanthropic work type, role,location, contributors, contributions, evidence, descriptions, rewardingvalues, etc., volunteer data 335 comprising information of philanthropicwork request's type, role, minimum duration, time slots, skills andrequirements, applicants, etc., donation data 336 comprising informationof donor, donee, donation amount, anonymity, related causes, receipts,other documents, etc., and other data 337 comprising data of otherapplications and common utilities. Some of the data may include otherfields or combinations of fields, be stored in other databases withother names, or be located or duplicated, for instance, on localattached or remote linked storage or storage facilities. For example,the benefactor and beneficiary relation may be stored within user datain alternative embodiments.

FIGS. 2A and 2B depict a graph of benefactor-beneficiary relationshipsamong a plural of users and an illustration of rewards receivers ofdifferent degree levels and corresponding amounts of rewarding pointsdistributed to them, according to an exemplary embodiment. Asillustrated in FIG. 2A, vertices A to H, U, and V are users, and edgesrepresent benefactor-beneficiary relationships with the arrow pointingto the benefactor. Correspondingly, FIG. 2B shows that, under adistribution rule of geometric progression with a common ratio of 0.1among different degree levels and mean distribution within the samedegree level, if user U, a beneficiary of a benefactor user A, pays out100 points for A's philanthropic work, the second degree benefactorsusers B and C will each get 5 points, and the third degree benefactorsusers D, E and F will each get 0.33 points, and the third degreebenefactor user F will get 0.1 points. Similarly, if user V, abeneficiary of a benefactor user H, pays out 100 points for H'sphilanthropic work, the second degree benefactor user C will get 10points, the third degree benefactor user G will get 1 point.Alternatively, arithmetic progression and other arbitrary distributionrules can be applied to determine the corresponding rewarding amountsthat each receiver will receive.

FIG. 4 is a flow chart that illustrates a method for determining areference amount of rewarding points to a benefactor of a philanthropicwork and enabling a beneficiary user to verify and reward the benefactorand potential indirect benefactors, according to an exemplaryembodiment. The method 400 may be implemented by a networked system 100described in FIG. 1. The method 400 begins at step 410 by receiving arequest from a beneficiary user to reward a benefactor of a publishedphilanthropic work. The method 400 retrieves descriptive information ofthe philanthropic work comprising work type, location, time, relatedphilanthropic cause, benefactor's work role, amount of money or timecontributed by the benefactor, description, title, related philanthropiccause, etc. The method 400 parses the descriptive information of thework at step 420 to decide whether an adjusted amount of referencerewarding points in the unit of time needs to be calculated at step 422.In some cases, if there's no need to calculate an adjusted amount oftime points, for instance, when the benefactor of the philanthropic workcontributed money, the method goes directly to step 430 to determine areference amount of rewarding points to the benefactor, in which thereference amount is set to be equal to the amount of money or timecontributed by the benefactor in the philanthropic work. On the otherhand, if there's a need to calculate an adjusted amount of time points,the method 400 goes to step 424 in which an evaluation function providesan adjusted time value of the benefactor's philanthropic work, using thedescriptive information of the work as input, and returning an adjustedtime value as output. At step 426, the adjusted time value determined bystep 424 is multiplied with the amount of time contributed by thebenefactor retrieved by step 420, to calculate an adjusted amount ofrewarding points in time unit. Once the adjusted amount of rewardingpoints is calculated, it is set as the reference amount of rewardingpoints to the benefactor at step 430. At step 440, the method 400provides a user interface for the beneficiary user to verify thebenefactor's contribution and reward the benefactor by paying out pointsto it. The user interface includes at least an input field whichdisplays the reference amount of rewarding points determined by step 430as a default rewarding amount to be paid out, and an input field whichdisplays the amount of money or time contributed by the benefactorretrieved by step 420 as a default amount of work contribution by thebenefactor in the philanthropic work, which can both be overridden bythe beneficiary user's input. At step 450, the method receives input bythe beneficiary user via the user interface which comprises at least averified amount of rewarding points that the beneficiary user intends topay out to the benefactor, and a verified amount of work contribution bythe benefactor that benefited the beneficiary user. At step 460, theuser's input is validated. If the user's input is invalid, for example,the user inputs an negative amount, or the paying amount surpasses theavailable amount from the user's rewarding account, the user isdisplayed with error message and is required to input again. If theuser's input is valid, on the other hand, the method 400 then arrives atstep 480 to further determine, based on the valid user input andhistorical benefactor-beneficiary relationships of users, specificreceived amounts of rewarding points as well as receivers of thecorresponding points, wherein the receivers comprise at least a firstreceiver who is the benefactor, and potential indirect receivers whowere the benefactor's previous benefactors, if there're any. At step490, the method 400 implements the transferring of points from therewarding account of the beneficiary user to the rewarding accounts ofthe at least first receiver and the indirect receivers as determined bystep 480. At step 470, valid paying amount and contribution amount inputby beneficiary users are further used as new training data to update theevaluation function for determining adjusted time values forphilanthropic works. The flow chart of method 400 is meant to beillustrative only, some steps may be separately listed as a method withits own steps, some steps may be executed in other order, and some stepsmay be simplified or further extended. For example, the amount of moneyor time contributed by the benefactor in the philanthropic work may notbe included for display or verification at steps 440 or 450, or step 470may be optional in some embodiments.

FIG. 5 depicts an interface that shows a philanthropic work, accordingto an exemplary embodiment. The interface 500 may be displayed on auser's device after a user submitting a public philanthropic work whichis visible to other users, or after a user submitting a privatephilanthropic work which is only visible to the user itself by clickingthe Good Work button 501 on a navigation bar and selecting Post GoodWorks, or after a user searching out a good work by clicking the GoodWork button 501 on a navigation bar and selecting Good Work Search, orafter a user clicking a link elsewhere in the system that leads to theinterface. This example interface 500 displays a published philanthropicwork, includes work title 505, work type 510, work role 515,philanthropic cause related to the work 520, time and location of thework 525, benefactors of the work and their corresponding contributions530, work description 540, photo evidence of the work 545, publishingtime 550 and author of the published work 555. In this example, thebenefactors of the philanthropic work include an organizer 532 and threevolunteers 534, who have each contributed certain amount of time asshown beside the username the corresponding benefactor, while theusername in greed color is a link that will leads to the user's profile.Also included in the interface 500 are an Acknowledge button 560 whichallows a beneficiary user to acknowledge benefactors of thisphilanthropic work by rewarding points to them, a Share button 570 whichallows a user to share with others the published work via emails, forinstance, to invite potential beneficiaries for acknowledgement, acomment section displaying existent comments of the work 580, and a formwith a Comment button 590 which allows a user to write comment for thepublished philanthropic work.

FIG. 6 depicts an interface that enables a beneficiary user to verifycontribution and reward points to a plural of benefactors and potentialindirect benefactors according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface600 may be displayed on a user's device after a user clicking theAcknowledge button 560 in interface 500 to reward benefactors of apublished philanthropic work, or be prompted right after an organizersubmitting a philanthropic work finished with participation ofvolunteers. In this example interface 600, the beneficiary user 605 ispresented with the title of a philanthropic work 610, which is a link tothe published philanthropic work as depicted in interface 500, and aform with a Transfer EP button 690 which allows the user to acknowledgethe benefactors of the philanthropic work, including the organizer andvolunteers, by transferring rewarding points to them. The form maydisplay the username of a benefactor of the philanthropic work as shownin Receiver column 620, the total amount of money or time that thebenefactor has contributed in the philanthropic work as shown in Workcontribution column 630, the unit of the philanthropic work as shown inWork unit column 640, the reference amount of rewarding points to thebenefactor determined by the system as shown in Rewarding amount column650, the unit of rewarding point as shown in Rewarding unit column 660,a brief description of the transaction generated by the system as shownin Description column 670, and a Transferred column 680 which willdisplay a past time if the beneficiary user has rewarded the benefactorfor this philanthropic work before. The beneficiary user can verify andoverride the default amounts displayed in the Work contribution column630 and the Rewarding amount column 650 to input other amounts beforeclicking button 690 to confirm the transferring of rewarding points toeach of the receivers. For example, the user may input a rewardingamount greater (or less) than the reference rewarding amount if itthinks that a benefactor did the work very well (or not well) hencedeserves more (or less) rewards, and may input a 0 if it has rewarded abenefactor for this philanthropic work before. The user may also changethe amount of work contribution based on what it has actually benefitedfrom a benefactor's work, which could be 0 too. The interface 600 ismeant to be illustrative only, as a variety of other formats orinformation are possible. For example, the Work contribution column 630may not be included in an embodiment.

FIG. 7 depicts an interface displaying a profile of a user whichcomprises the user's rewarding accounts summary information,philanthropic work related activities and a donation section, accordingto an exemplary embodiment. The interface 700 may be displayed on auser's device after a user clicking a profile link of a user which is ausername in green, such as 532 shown in interface 500. This example userprofile interface 700, which is public to other users, displays username710, user headline 720, rewarding accounts' balances and summaryinformation section 730, a Follow button 740 which allows other users tofollow the user, user basic information 750, user summary 760, userinterested causes 770, list of user's philanthropic work relatedactivities 780 of which each activity includes a brief activitydescription and a link to its related philanthropic work such as the onedepicted in interface 500, and a donation section 790 which allows otherusers to donate money to the user with a form and an Add to Giving Cartbutton 795. The rewarding accounts' balances and summary informationsection 730 may include the account type 731, account balance 732,account unit 733, and summary information 734 about rewarding accountsand transactions of the user and its total number of direct or indirectbenefactors and beneficiaries. Specifically in this example interface700, the summary information 734 displays that the user has contributed37.52 time points and 4.51 monetary points to its 3 direct benefactorsas shown in 735, that 32.41 time points and 27.03 monetary points havebeen contributed to the user by its 3 direct beneficiaries as shown in736, and that 0.96 time points and 1.13 monetary points have beendistributed to the user by its 6 second degree beneficiaries as shown in737. Depending on whether the user is viewing the profile of itself,more or less functions and information may be included in the interface700. For example, if the user is viewing its own profile, it is allowedto edit some information and preferences but not allowed to followitself, and more information regarding its rewarding accounts, such ascredit limits, may be displayed. And depending on the user's user type,subscription and verification status and preference, donation sectionand the Add to Giving Cart button 790 may or may not be included in theinterface 700. The interface 700 is meant to be illustrative only, as avariety of other information, formats or arrangement are possible inother embodiments. For example, in some embodiments, in addition todonation amount and anonymity, other fields, such as message from donor,may be included in the form in the donation section 790. And thedonation section 790 may be displayed in other interfaces of the systemwhere users are listed or sorted, for instance, interfaces 800 and 1000.

FIG. 8 depicts an interface displaying a following dashboard of a userwhich comprises rewarding accounts summary information and philanthropicwork related activities of the user's benefactors, beneficiaries, andother users followed by the user, according to an exemplary embodiment.The interface 800 may be displayed on a user's device after a userlogging in, or after a user clicking the People and Organizations button805 on a navigation bar, scrolling down and selecting Your FollowingDashboard. This example following dashboard interface 800 displays theuser's benefactors, their rewarding accounts balances and summaryinformation related to the user in section 810, the user'sbeneficiaries, their rewarding accounts balances and summary informationrelated to the user in section 820, other users that the user isfollowing and their rewarding accounts balances and summary informationin section 830, and the philanthropic work related activities of theuser's benefactors and beneficiaries, or of those that the user isfollowing, in section 840. The section 810 may include each benefactor'susername 812, accounts balances 814, and total amount of rewardingpoints that the user has contributed to the benefactor 816. The section820 may include each beneficiary's username 822, accounts balances 824,and total amount of rewarding points that the beneficiary has directlydistributed to the user 826, and total amount of rewarding points thathas been distributed to the user through the beneficiary 828. Thesection 830 may include username of each of those that the user isfollowing 832, their accounts balances 835 and accounts summaryinformation based on all their direct beneficiaries 836 and based on alltheir indirect beneficiaries 837. The activities section 840 may showusernames of the users who conduct the activities, brief description ofthe activities and the links to the related philanthropic works such asthe one depicted in interface 500. The usernames in the interface 800may be the users' profile links that lead to their profiles as depictedin interface 700. Specifically in this example interface 800, thesummary information 816 shows that the user has transferred 5.40monetary points and 0 time points to its direct benefactor with usernameshown in 812, the summary information 826 shows that 0 monetary pointsand 4.75 time points have been transferred to the user by itsbeneficiary with username shown in 822, and the summary information 828shows that 0.26 monetary points and 0.06 time points have beenindirectly distributed to the user through its beneficiary with usernameshown in 822. The summary information 835 shows that the user, withusername shown in 832, whom the logged in user is following, hastransferred 9.02 monetary points and 14.70 time points to its 3 directbenefactors, the summary information 836 shows that 14.42 monetarypoints and 3.62 time points have been transferred to the user withusername shown in 832 by its 3 direct beneficiaries, and the summaryinformation 837 shows that 1.11 monetary points and 1.13 time pointshave been distributed to the user with username shown in 832 by its 6second degree beneficiaries. The interface 800 is meant to beillustrative only, as a variety of other information, formats orarrangement are possible. For example, other embodiments may exhibit thebenefactor or beneficiary users in graphs, and may include other summaryinformation based on rewarding accounts, or based on relationships ofhigher degree levels.

FIG. 9A depicts an interface displaying basic information of a user'srewarding accounts according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface900 may be displayed on a user's device after a user logging in andclicking the Accounts and Profile button 901 on a navigation bar andselecting Your EP Accounts. This example interface 900 displays thebasic information of rewarding accounts the user owns, which includes anaccount that contains rewarding points measured in monetary unit, and anaccount that contains rewarding points measured in time unit. The basicinformation of a rewarding account may include account name 921, accountbalance 922, account unit 923, credit limit of account 924, and a linkto the transaction details of the account 925. Depending on how thesystem has initialized the rewarding accounts of a user, instead ofassigning a credit limit, an amount of rewarding points may be addeddirectly to the user's account and highlighted in other embodiments.

FIG. 9B depicts an interface displaying transaction details of a user'srewarding account according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface950 may be displayed on a user's device after a user clicking on thelink 925 in interface 900. This example interface 950 may display therewarding account name 951, a search form 952 with a Search button 953which allow the user to search the rewarding account's transactiondetails based on criteria such as transaction time and title of relatedphilanthropic work, and the resulted transaction detail list from thesearch 954. The transaction list 954 lists transaction history of arewarding accounts of the user, which may include transaction time 955,transaction description 956, transaction amount 957, and title of thephilanthropic work related to the transaction 958 which is link to apublic or private philanthropic work as depicted in interface 500. Thetransaction description 956 may contain information of the paying user,target receiver, and any indirect receivers involved, if thetransaction, for instance, is for distributing a portion of therewarding points to the user as a previous benefactor of a direct targetbenefactor. The interface 950 is meant to be illustrative only, as avariety of other formats of transaction description, search criteria,widgets or transaction information are possible. For example, theusername of direct or indirect benefactors and beneficiaries, or otherinformation of the philanthropic work related to the transaction may beincluded as search criteria in other embodiments.

FIG. 10 depicts an interface that enables a user to search and sortusers based on summary information of their rewarding accounts,according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface 1000 may bedisplayed on a user's device after a user clicking the People andOrganizations button 1005 on a navigation bar, scrolling down andselecting corresponding summary information to be sorted on. Theinterface 1000 may display a search form 1020, a Search and Sort button1030, and a resulted user list 1040 from the search and sort. The searchform 1020 may include search criteria such as username, name, location,user's profile headline and interested causes, etc. The resulted userlist 1040 may include the ranked user's username 1041 which is a link tothe user's profile depicted in interface 700, name 1042, profile image1043, rewarding account summary information 1044 that is sorted on, andlocation 1045. Depending on whether the user is searching for people ororganizations, different search criteria may be included in the searchform 1020, and different result information may be shown in the resulteduser list 1040. For example, if the user is searching and sortingorganizations, organization's legal name, mission, sector, andtax-exempt status may be included as search criteria, and the name 1042may display an organization's EIN in addition to its legal name.Specifically in this example interface 1000, organizations that areinterested in certain philanthropic cause are searched and ranked on arewarding account summary information 1010, which is the total amount oftime rewarding points that has been distributed to an organizationthrough its beneficiaries when others acknowledge them. The interface1000 is meant to be illustrative only, as a variety of other summaryinformation to be sorted on, such as the balance of a user's rewardingaccount, the total amount of rewarding points that a user hastransferred to acknowledge its benefactors, the total amount ofrewarding points that a user's beneficiaries have transferred toacknowledge it, etc., other formats of search, sort and list layouts orarrangements, and other search criteria, widgets or result informationare possible. For example, some other embodiments may display thespecific ranking number of a user, or mark a user with tier or levellabels or badges.

FIG. 11 depicts an interface displaying a management dashboard withrelevant options automatically determined by the system that enables aphilanthropic work requester to coordinate with applicants to requestslots, according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface 1100 may bedisplayed to a user on the user's device, right after the user submits aphilanthropic work request, reviews and edits the request for anymodifications, and decides to publish the request, or after therequester searches it out from all the requests submitted by therequester by clicking the Volunteering button 1105 on a navigation barand selecting Post Volunteer Need. This example interface 1100 displaysdescriptive information of the philanthropic work request, such asrequest title 1110, type 1111, philanthropic cause related to therequest 1112, description of the request 1113, instruction filedownloadable for future confirmed volunteer applicants 1114, major workrole requested 1115, requester username 1116, volunteer time andlocation of the request 1117, publish time and author of the request1118, dashboard 1120 which allows the requester to manage coordinationand communication for the request at the time slot level in one place, aShare button 1130 which allows a user to share with others the publishedrequest via emails to invite potential volunteer applicants, a GenerateWork Post button 1140 which allows the requester to generatephilanthropic work submission based on this request, and a commentsection 1150 which displays existent comments and allows a user tocomment on the request, similar to 580 and 590 depicted in interface500. Dashboard 1120 may include a list of time slot(/s) generated by thesystem, their starting time 1121, ending time 1122, number of availablespots 1123, volunteer applicants 1124 which is a list of volunteerapplicants who have applied to the work request, with username links totheir user profiles. Depending on the current situation and stage ofmanagement process, dashboard 1120 may or may not display for each timeslot a Cancel button 1125 which allows the requester to cancel the timeslot if it has not been applied by anybody, a Confirm button 1126 whichallows the requester to confirm all or some of the unconfirmed volunteerapplicants to the time slot and send emails to them, confirmedapplicants 1127 which is a list of volunteer applicants to the time slotwho have been confirmed by the requester with username links leading totheir user profiles, and an Send email button 1128 which allows therequester to send emails to all or some of the confirmed applicants tothe time slot. Only relevant buttons, lists and links are presented forcorresponding time slots when the system determines certain options areavailable and certain actions from the requester can be made based oncurrent coordination stage and situation of request and applications.The interface 1100 is meant to be illustrative only, as a variety ofother formats of dashboard or communication means, default conditions ordescriptive information of the request are possible.

FIG. 12 depicts an interface that enables a philanthropic work requesterto communicate with relevant applicants automatically determined by thesystem according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface 1200 may bedisplayed on a user's device after a philanthropic work requesterclicking on the buttons in dashboard 1120 in interface 1100. Thisexample interface 1200 displays communication description 1210 whichdescribes the communication stage and specific philanthropic workrequest slot that the communication is related to, a list ofcommunication receivers 1220 which may be a widget pre-filled withsystem determined receivers for the requester to accept orselect/unselect from, an email message template with pre-filledrequester username 1230, requester email address 1240, and messagecontent 1250, as well as a Send button 1260. Every time when a requesterarrives at interface 1200 after clicking the Confirm button 1126 ininterface 1100, the default list of receivers 1220 may contain onlythose new applicants and those who have not been confirmed if therequester confirmed not all of the applicants last time. Specifically inthis example interface 1200, the default list 1220 only contains oneapplicant who has not been confirmed by the requester yet. The requestercan also override and make changes to the default message content 1250.The interface 1200 is meant to be illustrative only, as a variety ofother communication stages, pre-determined receivers, formats, widgetsor content of message templates are possible.

FIG. 13 depicts an interface that enables a user to search and(un/)apply to philanthropic work request slots according to an exemplaryembodiment. The interface 1300 may be displayed on a user's device aftera user clicking the Volunteering button 1310 on a navigation bar andselecting Search and Apply for Local Volunteer Opportunities. Thisexample interface 1300 displays a request search form with a Searchbutton 1329 and a list of philanthropic work request time slots 1330which is the result of the search. The request search form may includesearch criteria such as minimum stay duration 1320, starting time 1321,ending time 1322, requester username 1323, request title 1324,description of the request 1325, location of the request 1326,philanthropic cause related to the request 1327, and the requested workrole 1328 which is an auto-complete widget that displays dynamic searchoptions as the user types. The result list of request time slots 1330may include requester 1331 which is the username of the requesterlinking to the requester's user profile, starting time 1332, ending time1333, location 1334, request title 1335 which is also a link leading tothe detail page of the philanthropic work request post, number ofavailable spots for applicants 1336, and an apply column displaying anApply button 1337 which allows the user to apply for the request timeslot, or displaying an Unapply button 1338 which allows the user toun-apply for an applied request time slot before the requester confirmsthe application, or displaying a “Confirmed” mark 1339 if an applicationis confirmed by the requester. The interface 1300 is meant to beillustrative only, as a variety of other search criteria, limits, resultinformation, formats or widgets are possible. For example, in otherembodiments, full or legal name of the requester may be included assearch criteria, or a user may be allowed to search and apply forphilanthropic work requests that are not local. In some embodiments, amap may be used to show the locations of the resulted requests as wellas the user, based on the user's profile address or geo-locationinformation collected from the user's device, and distances may befurther calculated for the user's reference.

FIG. 14 depicts an interface that enables a user to search, view and addto calendar its volunteer applications to philanthropic work requestslots according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface 1400 may bedisplayed on a user's device after a user clicking the Volunteeringbutton 1410 on a navigation bar, scrolling down and selecting YourVolunteer Applications. The interface 1400 may display a search form1420, a Search button 1429, a list of applications 1430 from the search,and a “Send Confirmed Slots to My Calendar” button 1440. The search form1420 may include search criteria such as time of the applied requestslot, username of the requester, location of the request, title of therequest, whether the request is been cancelled by the requester, etc.The resulted application list 1430 may include the starting and endingtime of the applied request 1431 and 1432, username of the requester1433, location of the request 1434, title of the request 1435 which isalso a link to the philanthropic work request post, a confirm column1436 displaying an “Confirmed” mark if an application is confirmed bythe requester, and a cancel column 1437 displaying an “Cancelled” markif a request is cancelled by the requester. By default, if no startingtime is given when searching, only those request slots that have notstarted yet are displayed. The “Send Confirmed Slots to My Calendar”button 1440 allows a user to send system generated calendar file of allthe active applied request time slots via email to be imported to theuser's personal calendar such as iCalendar, Outlook Calendar, or GoogleCalendar. The interface 1400 is meant to be illustrative only, as avariety of other search criteria, result information, defaultconditions, widgets or calendar importing ways are possible. Forexample, in some embodiments, system generated calendar file of a user'srequest time slots can be imported to its personal calendar via browserextensions.

FIG. 15 depicts an interface displaying an automatically generatedphilanthropic work submission based on a finished philanthropic workrequest, according to an exemplary embodiment. The interface 1500 may bedisplayed on a user's device after a request user clicking the GenerateWork Post button 1140 in interface 1100. The interface 1500 may includea form with a Submit button 1580 for submitting philanthropic work,which is automatically filled with information based on a finishedphilanthropic work request or any of its finished time slots. Someinformation of the form can be edited and overridden by user's input.This example interface 1500 displays philanthropic work title 1505,publish preference of the work submission 1510, work time 1515, worklocation 1520, philanthropic causes related to the work 1525, workdescription 1530, evidence of the work 1535 such as image and file, worktype 1540, work role 1545, benefactor of the work 1550, work unit 1555,benefactor's contribution 1560, and participated volunteers section1570. The participated volunteers section 1570 allows the user to editactual volunteers for each of the request time slots, and includes eachtime slot's starting time 1572, ending time 1574, list of confirmedvolunteer applicants 1576 which is a widget pre-filled with usernames ofconfirmed applicants for the request user to accept or select/unselectfrom in case some of them did not show up, and an input field 1578 forthe request user to add usernames of volunteers who actually volunteeredfor the time slot but are not included in the confirmed volunteerapplicants list 1576. Specifically in this example interface 1500, therequester user is adding a participated volunteer who were not confirmedinto field 1578. The interface 1500 is meant to be illustrative only, asa variety of other information, fields, pre-filling and overridingconditions, arrangements, formats or widgets are possible.

While the embodiments have been described within the framework ofphilanthropic endeavors, it will be appreciated that modifications andvariations may be made by a person of skill in the art without departingthe spirit and scope of the invention. For instance, the method andsystem may be realized as a game, or be used in other areas orbusinesses. Other architectures, modules, components or implementationsmay be realized. The steps of the method and system may be executed indifferent orders than that described in the specification or thatdepicted in the flow charts of drawings. Some of the modules, functionsor features may be provided by a separate application or platform.

What is claimed is:
 1. A computer-implemented method comprising:maintaining rewarding accounts for a plural of users; maintaining datareflecting dynamic historical philanthropic benefactor-beneficiaryrelationships among a plural of users; determining automatically bycomputer a reference amount of rewards to a benefactor of aphilanthropic work, comprising: training an evaluation functioncomprising one or more of machine learning algorithms, rules andmathematical models to determine amounts of adjusted time values forphilanthropic works, comprising: generating training data for the one ormore of machine learning algorithms, rules and mathematical models ofthe evaluation function, comprising: collecting work rewards informationfrom public or private sources, and applying one or more oftransformations to the work rewards information comprising integration,sampling, and indexing to create a set of evaluation metrics associatedwith a set of information of philanthropic works, the information ofphilanthropic work comprising one or more of information pertaining tophilanthropic work description, title, role, type, cause, organizer orvolunteer, location, time, and amount of time contribution ofbenefactor; training the one or more of machine learning algorithms,rules and mathematical models of the evaluation function using thetraining data; and updating, in real-time or at regular intervals, theone or more of machine learning algorithms, rules and mathematicalmodels of the evaluation function using newly obtained data based on oneor more of the following: (1) verified amount of rewards to a benefactorby a beneficiary of a philanthropic work, (2) verified amount of timecontribution of a benefactor that benefited a beneficiary of aphilanthropic work, (3) private information, and (4) public information;and processing, based on the evaluation function, information of aphilanthropic work; displaying information to a user that has requestedto reward the benefactor of the philanthropic work or is a potentialbeneficiary, comprising at least one of: (1) the reference amount ofrewards to the benefactor of the philanthropic work, and (2) an amountof time or monetary contribution of the benefactor in the philanthropicwork; receiving the user's input comprising at least one of: (1) averified amount of rewards to the benefactor, and (2) a verified amountof time or monetary contribution of the benefactor that benefited theuser; determining automatically by computer, based on the user's inputand the historical philanthropic benefactor-beneficiary relationships,amounts of rewards and corresponding receivers of the rewards, thereceivers comprising at least a first receiver who is the benefactor andindirect receivers who were the benefactor's benefactors; implementingtransferring of rewards from the rewarding account of the user to therewarding accounts of the at least first receiver and the indirectreceivers as determined; and displaying, ranking, offering for query, orreporting based on one or more of the following: (1) users' rewardingaccounts' balances and transactions' details comprising paths throughwhich rewards are directly rewarded as well as indirectly distributed,(2) rewards that users have rewarded or distributed to all, some or eachof its their direct or indirect benefactors over a period of time, (3)rewards that have been directly rewarded or indirectly distributed tousers by all, some or each of their direct or indirect beneficiariesover a period of time, and (4) philanthropic works related to rewards.2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: making a determination asto whether an amount of adjusted time value for a philanthropic work isneeded.
 3. The method of claim 1, further comprising: making adetermination as to whether the user's input is valid.
 4. The method ofclaim 1, wherein determining automatically by computer, based on theuser's input and the historical philanthropic benefactor-beneficiaryrelationships, amounts of rewards and corresponding receivers of therewards, the receivers comprising at least a first receiver who is thebenefactor and indirect receivers who were the benefactor's benefactorscomprises: identifying a first degree receiver who is the benefactorthat the user intends to reward; identifying each of the second, . . .n^(th) degree receiver who was the benefactor of each of the first, . .. (n−1)^(th) degree receivers; and calculating the amounts of rewards tobe received by the first degree receiver and each of the indirectreceivers, of which a total summation is equal to the user's input ofverified amount of rewards to the benefactor.
 5. The method of claim 4,wherein calculating the amount of rewards to be received by an indirectreceiver is based on one or more of the following: (1) rules fordistributing rewards among receivers of different degree levels, (2)rules for distributing rewards among receivers of the same degree level,and (3) rules independent of degree levels; wherein rules fordistributing rewards among receivers of different degree levels arebased on one or more of the following: (1) an arithmetic progressionwherein the difference of the arithmetic progression can be a negativevalue, (2) a geometric progression wherein the common ratio of thegeometric progression can be less than 1, and (3) an arbitrary series.6. The method of claim 1, further comprising: initializing a user'srewarding account with certain amount of rewarding credits; wherein themanner in which the rewarding credits are initialized is based on one ormore of the following: (1) an amount of rewards directly added to therewarding account of the user, and (2) a credit limit assigned to therewarding account of the user which allows the user to have a limitednegative balance in the account.
 7. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving a user's submission of a finished philanthropicwork, comprising one or more of the following: descriptive information,evidence, and publish preference; the descriptive information comprisingone or more of: work title, type, description, cause, organizer orvolunteer, role, amount of time or monetary contribution of benefactor,location, and time; the evidence comprising one or more of: documents,photos, audios, and videos or links to the documents, photos, audios,and videos; and the publish preference indicating whether the userintends to post the work publicly or privately; displaying, publicly orprivately, the philanthropic work according to the user's publishpreference; receiving a request from a beneficiary to reward abenefactor of a philanthropic work; enabling viewing, searching,filtering and sorting information about users based on one or more ofthe following: (1) philanthropic works done by a user, (2) balances ofrewarding accounts of a user, (3) balances of rewarding accounts of auser's direct benefactors or beneficiaries, (4) balances of rewardingaccounts of a user's indirect benefactors or beneficiaries, (5)transactions of rewarding accounts between a user and the user's directbenefactors or beneficiaries, and (6) transactions of rewarding accountsbetween a user and the user's indirect benefactors or beneficiaries;enabling a user to search, view, comment on, and share posting withothers a published philanthropic work; and enabling a user to invitepotential beneficiaries to reward benefactors of a publishedphilanthropic work.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the rewardingaccounts are at least based on digital representations in format ofpoints or tokens that measure time or monetary value in nominal units,and the amount of rewards is a decimal or integer number.
 9. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: enabling a user to donate money to otherusers based on at least information resulted from viewing, searching,filtering and sorting about the other users of one or more of thefollowing: (1) philanthropic works done by the other users, (2) balancesof rewarding accounts of the other users, (3) balances of rewardingaccounts of the other users' direct benefactors or beneficiaries, (4)balances of rewarding accounts of the other users' indirect benefactorsor beneficiaries, (5) amounts of rewards that the other users haverewarded or distributed to all, some or each of their direct or indirectbenefactors over a period of time, and (6) amounts of rewards that havebeen directly rewarded or indirectly distributed to the other users byall, some or each of the other users' direct or indirect beneficiariesover a period of time.
 10. The method of claim 1, further comprising:generating, automatically by computer, a donation philanthropic worksubmission based on money donation made by a user; displaying, publiclyor privately, the donation philanthropic work according to anonymity ofthe donation; and transferring, automatically by computer, rewards inmonetary unit from the rewarding account of donee to rewarding accountsof at least a donor and the donor's previous benefactors.
 11. The methodof claim 1, further comprising: receiving a philanthropic work requestsubmitted by a user; enabling the user to invite others to apply to thephilanthropic work request; providing to the user a dynamic managementdashboard to coordinate and communicate with applicants based on currentsituation and communication stage; enabling a user to search, filter,sort, and apply to philanthropic work requests; enabling a user to view,comment on, and share posting with others a philanthropic work request;and generating, automatically by computer, philanthropic worksubmissions based on finished philanthropic work requests.
 12. A systemcomprising: one or more servers having at least a computing processorand memory comprising computer programs and instructions; one or moredatabases, communicatively coupled to the one or more servers,comprising user data, rewarding accounts data, philanthropicbenefactor-beneficiary relationships data, philanthropic work data,volunteer data, and donation data; and when the computer programs andinstructions are executed by the computing processor, the one or moreservers are configured to perform one or more actions comprising:maintaining rewarding accounts for a plural of users; maintaining datareflecting dynamic historical philanthropic benefactor-beneficiaryrelationships among a plural of users; determining automatically bycomputer a reference amount of rewards to a benefactor of aphilanthropic work, comprising: training an evaluation functioncomprising one or more of machine learning algorithms, rules andmathematical models to determine amounts of adjusted time values forphilanthropic works, comprising: generating training data for the one ormore of machine learning algorithms, rules and mathematical models ofthe evaluation function, comprising: collecting work rewards informationfrom public or private sources, and applying one or more oftransformations to the work rewards information comprising integration,sampling, and indexing to create a set of evaluation metrics associatedwith a set of information of philanthropic works, the information ofphilanthropic work comprising one or more of information pertaining tophilanthropic work description, title, role, type, cause, organizer orvolunteer, location, time, and amount of time contribution ofbenefactor; training the one or more of machine learning algorithms,rules and mathematical models of the evaluation function using thetraining data; and updating, in real-time or at regular intervals, theone or more of machine learning algorithms, rules and mathematicalmodels of the evaluation function using newly obtained data based on oneor more of the following: (1) verified amount of rewards to a benefactorby a beneficiary of a philanthropic work, (2) verified amount of timecontribution of a benefactor that benefited a beneficiary of aphilanthropic work, (3) private information, and (4) public information;and processing, based on the evaluation function, information of aphilanthropic work; displaying information to a user that has requestedto reward the benefactor of the philanthropic work or is a potentialbeneficiary, comprising at least one of: (1) the reference amount ofrewards to the benefactor of the philanthropic work, and (2) an amountof time or monetary contribution of the benefactor in the philanthropicwork; receiving the user's input comprising at least one of: (1) averified amount of rewards to the benefactor, and (2) a verified amountof time or monetary contribution of the benefactor that benefited theuser; determining automatically by computer, based on the user's inputand the historical philanthropic benefactor-beneficiary relationships,amounts of rewards and corresponding receivers of the rewards, thereceivers comprising at least a first receiver who is the benefactor andindirect receivers who were the benefactor's benefactors; implementingtransferring of rewards from the rewarding account of the user to therewarding accounts of the at least first receiver and the indirectreceivers as determined; and displaying, ranking, offering for query, orreporting based on one or more of the following: (1) a users' rewardingaccounts' balances and transactions' details comprising paths throughwhich rewards are directly rewarded as well as indirectly distributed,(2) rewards that users have rewarded or distributed to all, some or eachof their direct or indirect benefactors over a period of time, (3)rewards that have been directly rewarded or indirectly distributed tousers by all, some or each of their direct or indirect beneficiariesover a period of time, and (4) philanthropic works related to rewards.13. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more actions furthercomprise: making a determination as to whether an amount of adjustedtime value for a philanthropic work is needed.
 14. The system of claim12, wherein the one or more actions further comprise: making adetermination as to whether the user's input is valid.
 15. The system ofclaim 12, wherein determining automatically by computer, based on theuser's input and the historical philanthropic benefactor-beneficiaryrelationships, amounts of rewards and corresponding receivers of therewards, the receivers comprising at least a first receiver who is thebenefactor and indirect receivers who were the benefactor's benefactorscomprises: identifying a first degree receiver who is the benefactorthat the user intends to reward; identifying each of the second, . . .n^(th) degree receiver who was the benefactor of each of the first, . .. (n−1)^(th) degree receivers; and calculating the amounts of rewards tobe received by the first degree receiver and each of the indirectreceivers, of which a total summation is equal to the user's input ofverified amount of rewards to the benefactor; wherein calculating theamount of rewards to be received by an indirect receiver is based on oneor more of the following: (1) rules for distributing rewards amongreceivers of different degree levels, (2) rules for distributing rewardsamong receivers of the same degree level, and (3) rules independent ofdegree levels.
 16. The system of claim 12, wherein the one or moreactions further comprise: initializing a user's rewarding account withcertain amount of rewarding credits; wherein the manner in which therewarding credits are initialized is based on one or more of thefollowing: (1) an amount of rewards directly added to the rewardingaccount of the user, and (2) a credit limit assigned to the rewardingaccount of the user which allows the user to have a limited negativebalance in the account.
 17. The system of claim 12, wherein the one ormore actions further comprise: receiving a user's submission of afinished philanthropic work, comprising one or more of the following:descriptive information, evidence, and publish preference; thedescriptive information comprising one or more of: work title, type,description, cause, organizer or volunteer, role, amount of time ormonetary contribution of benefactor, location, and time; the evidencecomprising one or more of: documents, photos, audios, and videos or alink to the documents, photos, audios, and videos; and the publishpreference indicating whether the user intends to post the work publiclyor privately; displaying, publicly or privately, the philanthropic workaccording to the user's publish preference; receiving a request from abeneficiary to reward a benefactor of a philanthropic work; enablingviewing, searching, filtering and sorting information about users basedon at least one or more of the following: (1) philanthropic works doneby a user, (2) balances of rewarding accounts of a user, (3) balances ofrewarding accounts of a user's direct benefactors or beneficiaries, (4)balances of rewarding accounts of a user's indirect benefactors orbeneficiaries, (5) transactions of rewarding accounts between a user andthe user's direct benefactors or beneficiaries, and (6) transactions ofrewarding accounts between a user and the user's indirect benefactors orbeneficiaries; enabling a user to search, view, comment on, and shareposting with others a published philanthropic work; and enabling a userto invite potential beneficiaries to reward benefactors of a publishedphilanthropic work.
 18. The system of claim 12, wherein the rewardingaccounts are at least based on digital representations in format ofpoints or tokens that measure time or monetary value in nominal units,and the amount of rewards is a decimal or integer number.
 19. The systemof claim 12, wherein the one or more actions further comprise: enablinga user to donate money to other users based on at least informationresulted from viewing, searching, filtering and sorting about the otherusers of one or more of the following: (1) philanthropic works done bythe other users, (2) balances of rewarding accounts of the other users,(3) balances of rewarding accounts of the other users' directbenefactors or beneficiaries, (4) balances of rewarding accounts of theother users' indirect benefactors or beneficiaries, (5) amounts ofrewards that the other users have rewarded or distributed to all, someor each of their direct or indirect benefactors over a period of time,and (6) amounts of rewards that have been directly rewarded orindirectly distributed to the other users by all, some or each of theother users' direct or indirect beneficiaries over a period of time;generating, automatically, a donation philanthropic work submissionbased on money donation made by a user; displaying, publicly orprivately, the donation philanthropic work according to anonymity of thedonation; and transferring, automatically by computer, rewards inmonetary unit from the rewarding account of the donee to rewardingaccounts of at least a donor and the donor's previous benefactors. 20.The system of claim 12, wherein the one or more actions furthercomprise: receiving a philanthropic work request submitted by a user;enabling the user to invite others to apply to the philanthropic workrequest; providing to the user a dynamic management dashboard tocoordinate and communicate with applicants based on current situationand communication stage; enabling a user to search, filter, sort, andapply philanthropic work requests; enabling a user to view, comment on,and share posting with others a philanthropic work request; andgenerating, automatically by computer, philanthropic work submissionsbased on finished philanthropic work requests.